Reviews
AMD's original implementation of its FidelityFX Super Resolution technique, while good, was not quite on the same level as NVIDIA's DLSS solution in many circumstances. FSR has its advantages, to be clear—it's super-easy to implement and it has a low performance cost—but it wasn't a massive visual upgraded over the...
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While it's early morning (or late night) here in the US, it's mid-afternoon in Taipei, and AMD just finished up its Computex 2022 keynote. Some of the talk in today's event was a recap of the company's recent releases, such as its Ryzen 6000 series mobile processors and the laptops arriving in market powered by them...
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Qualcomm is updating its mobile platforms with a couple of enhanced SoCs, including the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 for flagship Android phones, and the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 for premium handsets that fall just a step below. As it happens, we had the opportunity to preview the performance of the former and spoiler alert, it's...
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We've all heard that a carpenter is only as good as their tools, and that certainly applies to more than just whittling wood and building tables. In the realm of tech, and specifically extended reality (XR) experiences, Qualcomm's Snapdragon XR2 5G platform is a powerful tool for device makers and developers. Everyone...
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AMD officially lifted the veil on its latest Ryzen 6000 series mobile processors back at CES early this year. In case you missed it, we detailed that initial announcement, talked about the high level features, and broke down the H and U-series SKU stack in our coverage at the time. More recently, we had the chance to evaluate the excellent...
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When NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3080 Ti mobile GPU and Intel’s beefy 12th Gen Core H-Series processors first hit the scene, they tore through the lab here guns a-blazin’. We had the chance to take a look at a couple of killer systems from MSI and Alienware at the time, which maxed-out the platform with...
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One of the biggest differentiators of the Radeon RX 6000 family, and by extension of the RDNA 2 graphics architecture, is its reliance on a large local cache—known officially as "Infinity Cache"—to provide rapid framebuffer access. This helps to make up for the relatively slower memory used on the cards in comparison to competitor...
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Intel is expanding its Alder Lake family with one more series in the mobile sector, and in doing so it paves the way for even more capable mobile workstations and gaming laptops. Announced at its Intel Vision 2022 conference, the new 12th Gen Intel Core HX processors extend the H-series into what is essentially a...
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Artificial intelligence and robotics go together like peanut butter and chocolate. To be truly useful, a service robot needs to be smart enough to perform its assigned tasks, stay out of danger, and not run over its human coworkers in the process. Nearly a decade ago, NVIDIA recognized that the hugely parallel...
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For better or for worse, OnePlus is changing. In the past year, the company has merged with Oppo, transitioned OxygenOS to Oppo’s ColorOS code base, and replaced Warp Charge with Oppo’s SuperVOOC. But here in the US, OnePlus also grew almost 3x thanks in no small part to its affordable Nord N series...
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Dell recently reached out and offered a review unit of their newest XPS 8950 desktop. We initially said, "but we've already reviewed that one," to which Dell replied "no, that was the 8940 Special Edition. We've since dropped the 'Special Edition', and updated the hardware. It's got a 12th-gen CPU now, and we made its chassis larger to accommodate...
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In person events are starting to return and attending PAX East 2022 over the weekend reminded us how much we've missed them. Maybe not in their entirety—the hustle and bustle can be a bit much—but as far as PAX East goes, it was great to see so many gaming PCs on display. This was most evident over at Intel's massive...
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Two years ago, we reviewed the Samsung Galaxy Tab S7+ and gave it our recommendation without reservation. As we noted in that review, the premium Android tablet space is pretty sparse. There are a number of dirt cheap tablets running old versions of Android out there, but you’re unlikely to find high build...
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Origin PC has been building top-flight gaming rigs for over a decade now, and the attention to detail that the company demonstrates in its builds is right up there with the best of them. There was a time when Origin PC featured custom chassis designs, like the Genesis series of years past, which only Origin had in its...
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Way back at CES this year, AMD unveiled its Ryzen 6000 processors in mobile form. Using significant revisions to the Zen 3 core for power efficiency, AMD says its Ryzen 6000 mobile processors are its most efficient ever. In combination with an upgrade to the power-sipping RDNA 2 graphics architecture, these chips...
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Samsung made a splash recently as one of the first laptop manufacturers with a Spring refresh powered by Intel's new Alder Lake-P 12th Gen Core processors for mainstream thin and light laptops. Targeted at a class of machines Intel calls the "Performance Thin And Light" category, these 12th Gen Core chips drop into a 28 Watt power envelope,...
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AMD has been working on its 3D chiplet technology for quite some time now, but it was back at Computex last year that the company initially showed off its 3D V-Cache in a consumer processor, targeted squarely at gamers. Though the chip AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su held up on stage was somewhat different than the Ryzen 7 5800X3D we’ll be showing...
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The pixels output by your PC's graphics card are only as good as the monitor that displays them. Attach a shiny new GeForce RTX 3080 Ti to a bargain basement, slow 1080p panel with a refresh rate of 60Hz and you'll likely get what you had coming: blurring, color shift, dull images, and an unpleasant experience. We...
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By most accounts, Intel's 12th Gen Core processors based on the hybrid Alder Lake mobile architecture have been a smashing success for gaming laptops. From class-leading desktop performance to outstanding mobile prowess, the blue team's Alder Lake family has shown strong gains in workloads of all kinds. The first notebooks we looked at,...
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AMD has been riding high since the release of its first Ryzen 5000 Series desktop processors back in late in 2020. Although Intel recently shook things up in the enthusiast desktop processor space with its Alder Lake-based 12th Gen Core processors, the AMD Ryzen 5000 Series remains attractive up and down its stack...
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A lot has changed at OnePlus over the past year. The company has merged with Oppo, and OnePlus’ OxygenOS now shares a common codebase with Oppo’s ColorOS. Warp Charge is now called SuperVOOC, which is Oppo’s fast charging brand. OnePlus also set sales records in 2021, shipping 11 million phones...
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For the past several years, we’ve been hearing about Intel’s extensive plan to enter the discrete GPU space. It’s the main reason why Raja Koduri joined the chipmaker in late 2017, who came on board to spearhead not just a one-off product launch, but a new era of graphics at Intel with a robust roadmap extending years...
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